California's Gold: Four Seasons of Wildflowers

Summer is waning and autumn - that glorious season of deliciously rich color before the quiet sleep of winter - is softly approaching.

California is a state of gold: golden grasses, golden trees, golden sunlight and, of course, literal gold!  Oftentimes, trees, especially our brilliant autumn star the aspen, steal the show this season.  (I wrote about them last year, and the year before.)  But of course, the unsung heroes of the fall color pageant are the background characters, those who quietly put on a stunning performance no less brilliant for its subtlety.  I'm talking, of course, about California's wildflowers.  

While spring is the traditional glory season for wildflowers across the lower elevations of the state, autumn has its moments of jaw-dropping splendor as well.

John Muir called it,
"... a most extraordinary outgush of plant-life, at the very driest time of the whole year.  A small unobtrusive plant, Hemizonia virgata, from six inches to three feet in height, with pale, glandular leaves, suddenly bursts into bloom, in patches miles in extent, like a resurrection of the gold of April.  [This is generally known as 'tarweed' Muir notes.]  .... In our estimation, it is the most delightful member of the whole Compositae Family of the plain."

Not fields of golden spring wildflowers; this is what our foothills look like in September!  

Every season holds a wealth of golden treasure to be found across the wild lands of California in the form of wildflowers of every description, but perhaps the most surprising is the tarweed of autumn.

In the late winter and early spring of wet years, wildflowers with charming names like desert dandelion and desert gold carpet the deserts of southern California.

Desert Dandelions in Death Valley National Park (spring 2016)


Unidentified yellow composite at Joshua Tree National Park (spring 2016)

Spring is also the season when meadow foam rings vernal pools, California poppies and hillside daisies blanket the hills, and goldfields and tidy tips form pools of gold in the grasslands.

Tidy Tips at Carrizo Plain National Monument (spring 2017)


Hillside Daisy and Fiddlneck at Carrizo Plain National Monument (spring 2017)

As the heat of summer builds, hardy gumplant and sunflowers make a brave showing in hot inland areas, while bur marigolds line rivers and wetlands in late summer, seaside golden yarrow billows in gold profusion across coastal dunes, and sunny mule ears and sneezeweed light up mountain meadows.

Gumplant in the Central Valley (summer, 2016)


Bur Marigold lining the Tuolumne River (late summer 2016)

As blazing summer mellows into the lingering warmth of a Californian autumn, goldenrod and rabbitbrush come into their own.

Goldenrod in the Central Valley (late summer 2016)

Rabbitbrush in the Eastern Sierra (fall 2018)

And across the hills of central California, resinous tarweeds put on a glorious display, cloaking mellow golden grasslands in a floriferous brilliance enhanced by the low angles of the autumnal sun.

Tarweed (Holocarpha sp.) blooms from summer through fall

I snagged a few photos from the car the other day as we wended our way up into the Sierra along Highway 108, hoping to convey just how beautiful the foothills of our state are at this time of year.  Even nearly smothered as they are in introduced exotic annual grasses which appear dead (and unattractive, to many eyes) after months without rain, the hills are alive and radiant as hardy native plants, like tarweed, grow and bloom despite scorching heat and parched, rocky soil.

Hills of California's gold.

Like spring, autumn is a fleeting season (although it does linger well into November in California's mild climate.)  The end of summer is even more fleeting: the mellow sunlight, the quiet of the birds after a busy nesting season, the natural dormant season for many native plants.  Take advantage of this special time while you can: head outdoors into the grasslands and woodlands of our golden state and see what autumnal treasures await your discovery.  (I'll give you a hint... Soon, very soon, the quiet will break and winged treasures will begin showing up to spend winter with us after long migrations from colder climes!  Stay tuned!)

Hills flowing with liquid gold: tarweed!

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